The Court of Appeals of Maryland added eight cases to its merits docket today. Expert standards have been a hot topic as of late, and today’s list includes expert issues in both civil and criminal cases. There are some nuts-and-bolts issues, like authentication rules and discovery sanctions. Not surprisingly, in light of a dissent by Judge Berger, the grants include the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s challenge to a negligence claim arising out of a lead paint study.

(We’ve been endeavoring to include links to any relevant Court of Special Appeals opinions, but it will take a little extra time because the “Search Site” feature on the judiciary’s website is still a bit wonky after last month’s launch of the redesigned site.) Read More…

On Friday, the Maryland Court of Appeals posted two more certiorari grants. One is Attorney Grievance Commission v. Clevenger. When the trial court ruled in September, Chase Cook of the Capital Gazette described the ruling under review:

Circuit Court Judge Paul F. Harris Jr. ruled Monday after a short hearing in Annapolis that the Attorney Grievance Commission and Office of Bar Counsel Maryland Office of Bar Counsel must investigate attorneys David E. Kendall, Cheryl D. Mills and Heather Samuelson. All three are licensed to practice in Maryland and could face professional sanctions if the commission determines there are guilty of misconduct.

Ty Clevenger, a Texas attorney who lives in New York, filed the complaint, saying they deleted thousands of emails related to a private email server Clinton used during her time as Secretary of State. He argued they engaged in misconduct by destroying evidence.

In granting review, the Court of Appeals bypassed the Court of Special Appeals. The full list of certiorari grants, including questions presented, appears after the jump. Read More…

The Court of Appeals of Maryland today granted certiorari review in five appeals. The list of grants, including questions presented, appears after the jump. For the two cases where there are Court of Special Appeals opinions, we have provided a link. Read More…

The Maryland Court of Appeals has posted four additional certiorari grants following yesterday’s monthly conference. Three of them involve challenges to juvenile life sentences (including a dispute whether a 100-year sentence counts as a life sentence). The full list, including questions presented, appears after the jump. Read More…

The Maryland Court of Appeals has posted six certiorari grants. The list is heavy on procedural questions, such as the “prison mailbox rule” and interlocutory appeals in criminal cases. (Incidentally, Michael Wein posted yesterday about civil interlocutory appeals.) The list of grants, with questions presented, appears after the jump. We’ve added, in brackets, a link to the Court of Special Appeals opinion. Read More…

The merits docket for September Term 2017 is filling up fast, with 12 new grants posted yesterday on the Maryland Court of Appeals website. We’re now up to 47 merits cases, meaning that the merits dockets is probably about half full. The cases involve a drug-sniffing dog, a woman who needed to visit the rest room before submitting to a breathalyzer test, a challenge to the authentication of business records, a wrongful death claim against a pyschiatrist who discharged a patient from involuntary commitment, a statute-of-repose defense against an asbestos claim, and many more. The full list appears after the jump. Read More…

The Court of Appeals posted a batch of August 28 certiorari grants, but we were waiting for the questions presented to appear on the Court’s site before we did a post. They’re up, and they’re interesting. Question 1 in Seaborne-Worsely, for example, involves a bar-exam-type hypothetical on the operation of Maryland’s contributory negligence rule; it looks like the Court of Appeals took the case on bypass review. State v. Brookman (COSA opinion here) features a variety of appellate procedure questions arising out of Drug Court proceedings. Rodriguez v. Cooper (COSA opinion here) is on its second trip to the Court of Appeals, which in 2015 reinstated a jury finding of gross negligence against a corrections officer in charge of prison transport bus during one inmate’s murder of another. This time, the question is whether the cap on noneconomic damages applies.

This March, the Court of Appeals of Maryland held in Norman v. State that an “odor of marijuana alone emanating from a vehicle with multiple occupants does not give rise to reasonable articulable suspicion that the vehicle’s occupants are armed and dangerous and subject to frisk.”

The State of Maryland petitioned for certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, posing the following question: Read More…

The Clerk’s office at the Court of Appeals has been busy since the Court’s July 27 special sitting and conference. The Court issued seven opinions and a per curiam order (opinion to come) on Friday. Then, after issuing two more decisions for good measure on Monday, the Court posted five new certiorari grants.

Before we get to the grants, though, let’s take a moment to appreciate the efficiency of the Court and its Clerk’s office. As of Monday, the Court has decided every case argued from September 2016 through February 2017. The oldest outstanding cases were argued March 3. Only 16 opinions are left heading into August.

The new grants appear, with questions presented, after the jump. Read More…